Back Translation

Hey gang, I had a client ask for a back translation. Does anyone know what that means? Thanks! Adam

Mmmm.. Maybe he got something written in his back, and he wants to know what does it say :D:D
Nah, honestly, I had no idea.. :p:p

Hi!
Yes, it's when you translate an already translated text to its original language.

Thanks Daniel. Do you know why someone would want to do that?

I guess that your client may want to do it to check that the translation corresponds to the source (although there are other ways of checking it too) or because the source file is missing and they need it again in that language.
It is also a way of practising if you study translation.

Oh okay. I imagine that they are requesting for quality assurance in that case.

What are the other ways for checking quality?

Exactly, Daniel, back translation is the procedure according to which a translator interpret a document previously translated into another language back to the original language. This process should be made by a translator who had not been previously involved in the project.
Hope that helps.

By the way, Comparison of a back-translation to the original text is used as a quality check on the original translation.

Thanks Maximiliano! Do you know of any other methods to check the quality of a translation?

As Maximiliano says, this process has to be done by an umbiased person who doesn't know the text.
Every company or provider can established its own process to check the compliance. But I think that a good editing focused on correspondance can work and the potential errors can be avoided. Or just a linguistic quality assurance to point out if the text doesn’t correspond and why.
These are just suggestions. Both are simpler than back-translating and they should be adapted to each case and recommended to the clients if needed.

Daniel, you lost me a little with linguistic quality assurance. What does that process entail?

A linguistic quality assurance or LQA is a process from the localization industry that companies define according to their needs and processes. It's basically a control of the linguistic part of the text.

Hi Adam,

Some companies have to translate and back-translate documents to respect ISO norms. The rule is: the translating team has to be completely different from the back-translating team (with no contact between both teams). If the translation has a memory, it can't be used for the back-translation.
On a higher level, a back translation is the best QA check you could have. Indeed, if the back translated term doesnt match the source term, it means that the translation was wrong: take for instance "spouse", that is translated to "esposa", that is back-translated to "wife".... You start with "spouse" and end up woth "wife"=the spanish translation was incorrect.

Hi Nabyl,

Thanks for the detailed reply! Are there other methods used for checking the quality of a translation, or is this the only option?

There are a lot of methods, and softwares for QA checks. You can always add control steps to a project. But I think the back translation is the "ultimate" one.

Exactly. There are hundreds of options for quality check. They will depend on what is required. The process changes if you need to check the style, the terminology or the correspondance.

Okay, so back translation is the way to go, if you want to really be sure the translation is correct. Thanks guys!

It's mainly used for market surveys, sociological studies, medical forms, psychological examinations, informed consent forms, client-satisfaction assessment, pharmaceutical queries, research study protocols, etc.

Maximiliano, Do you mean there are other uses for back translation other than checking the quality of the translation?

Well, most often back translation is requested to satisfy a legal or regulatory requirement or to add additional quality checks to the forward translations. But the bottom line is always checking the accuracy of the translation.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Thanks!

It's more common than what you think :-)

After the back translation, we can perform a Reconciliation. During reconciliation, source material is compared with the back translation to look for problems where the meaning is confusing or slightly off in meaning. Under reconciliation, edits and adjustments are made as needed to optimize the final output.

I see. Now is the reconciliation performed by the same team that did the translation or the back translation? Or does it have to be completed by a new team that didn't do either of these steps?

I suppose it is a much easier and faster process to have one language service provider perform all the steps in the forward translation, back translation and reconciliation process.

I was just thinking perhaps there is an issue with using the same team to check their own work. It seems like a conflict of interest for them to point out their own errores, and that's assuming that they can even catch them.

Yes, they can be biased, but it also happens that a translation has no important errors. And as you can see, this is a heavy process. There are simpler methods to get a good translation.

We can learn a lot from, for example, from a healthcare organization that contacts you because they had relied on a competitive translator who accidentally mistranslated a word, which eventually cost them their entire research project and millions of dollars. One word mistranslated can have serious consequences.

But wouldn't you both agree that the back translation should be preformed by different translators that did the translation? It doesn't seem to make sense to have the same team that did the translations make the back translation, or am I missing something?

Of course. It should be performed by different people if we want a more objective review.

Okay. That's what I thought. Thanks!